“Looking for you and Sintara! To help you, remember? You said she was drowning, but she doesn’t look too worried right now. How did you do all this? Seems like half the city is lit up! I bet they’re boiling with curiosity across the river! And look at all the water. Where’s it coming from? Heeby! Heeby, wait, darling, what are you doing? How did you do that?”

For the red dragon had proceeded to enter a bath trough. The hot, scented water had already begun to flow into it. Heeby was settling into it with a happy wriggle when Rapskal shouted, “Hey, wait for me!” and began to strip.

“You can’t do that in front of me!” Thymara exclaimed, offended, but he only turned and grinned at her.

“You did it first. And I’m cold to the bone.” He dropped his clothes to the floor and jumped directly into the water. “Oh, yowtch, that’s hot! How do you stand it?” He’d lifted himself on the side and was staring at her over the edge.

“Go in slowly,” she suggested and turned away from him.

Sintara had opened her eyes and was regarding them all with annoyance. Rapskal stayed as he was, letting the slowly rising water come up on him. He moved to the end of the dragon bath to be closer to Thymara and hung on the edge of it, cheeks red and dark hair dripping.

“So, hey, Sintara. Hey, big girl? Look over here at me, princess! How’d you do it? How did you light up the city? Heeby and I been here before, lots of times. It never lit up or made a bath for us. At least, not until now.”

Sintara swiveled her head on her chin rest to regard them. Thymara was shocked at how he had addressed her dragon but sensed, too, that Sintara did not mind being called “princess.” Perhaps he could not tell how much his words had pleased the dragon, but Thymara could. She, Sintara, had wakened the city when Heeby had not. Perhaps that was why she deigned to answer him.

“Perhaps the city was awaiting the return of a real dragon. I simply told the city what I wanted. It’s how Kelsingra works. All the Elderling cities worked this way. These cities were built for the convenience of dragons. To lure us to come and spend time among the Elderlings. If they did not please us, why would we have bothered?” Her eyes spun in lazy pleasure and slowly she lidded them, leaving them all to think about that.

“Look at your wings!” Thymara exclaimed suddenly and walked over to gaze down on her dragon.

“One is weaker. It will grow.” Sintara sounded annoyed to be reminded of the flaw.